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Wine Peeps is an independent wine blog dedicated to helping you get the most bang for your buck in wine. We do this through blind tastings of wine from around the world and calculations of Quality-to-Price Ratios (QPRs). Because we are located in Seattle, Washington, we have a special interest in Washington State wines.

In the course of our wine journey, we also enjoy numerous wine-related activities such as traveling throughout wine country, visiting vineyards, reading wine books, and trying wine gadgets, all of which we share with our readers.

As we traveled through Colorado, we made several stops at wineries near Palisade, Colorado. We were impressed that each of the wineries we visited sold only Colorado grown grapes, offered complimentary tastings, had nice professional tasting rooms, and their wines were pretty good.

Our first stop was at Grande River Vineyards, Coloradoâ€™s oldest winery. Their production is about 8,000 cases per year, almost all sold in Colorado, although they can ship to Washington State. We tasted seven different wines with our favorite being the 2005 Grande River Syrah.

Our next stop was at Plum Creek Winery, a winery started in 1983 with production of about 15,000 cases per year, all sold in Colorado. Plum Creek will no longer even ship outside of Colorado, a shame since they have some good wines. We tasted five Plum Creek wines, our favorites being their 2006 Plum Creek Sauvignon Blanc, the 2006 Plum Creek Sangiovese, and the 2006 Plum Creek Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our final stop was at Graystone Winery, a Port house where we tasted three different ports. Our favorite was their Graystone Port III (2003 Cab/Merlot Ruby Port), a port that we believe will be even better with more time in the bottle.

In my opinion, Colorado is an emerging wine area that has good potential. They seem to be able to grow the popular international varietals and have a tourist base that is generally wine savvy. Iâ€™d like to come back in five years and see the progress they have made.

Since we tasted fifteen different wines, I have broken down the list into Quality rating categories. Under each Quality heading, the wine name will be listed along with price and QPR rating. Wines in bold type received a QPR rating of 5 bangs for your buck (out of 5).

Next time you are in Colorado, visit Balistreri Winery in north Denver. They make award winning wines and the winery is great fun to visit. Most of their grapes come from the Rocky Mountains western slopes.http://www.balistreriwine.com/

Dave,
On my way back from my trip to Texas Wine Country, I stopped in Denver to see my sister for a few days. While I was there, I took out a few hours one afternoon at your suggestion to visit Ballistreri in northeast Denver. It was fun to visit; the hospitality was great. We tasted almost twenty different wines without a tasting fee, which was great. Unfortunately, I thought most of the wines were fairly mediocre; although I did like the 2007 Colorado Syrah (Horse Mountain Vineyards) and the 2006 Colorado Cab (Hovde Vineyards), although they were a little pricey at $28 and $30 respectively.